OpenAI Founder Ilya Announces Departure: A Significant Step?
In a social media post, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever announced her decision to leave OpenAI. She praised the company's trajectory as "miraculous" and expressed confidence in its future under the leadership of CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, CTO Mira Murati, and Jakub Pachocki, who will succeed Ilya as Chief Scientist. I am confident that OpenAI will build safe and useful AGI under the leadership of CEO Sam Altman, President Greg Brockman, CTO Mira Murati, and Jakub Pachocki, who will take over from Ilya as Chief Scientist.
At the conclusion of the tweet, Ilya stated that he has already formulated a plan for his next steps, but could not yet reveal the specifics. The timing of Ilya's announcement was also fortuitous, occurring shortly after Google's annual I/O conference and focusing global attention on OpenAI. Similarly to Sora, which was released in February following Google's Gemini 1.5 announcement, OpenAI has achieved a "two for two" success, once again diverting Google's traffic.
Altman also posted a response to Ilya's departure. This time, he did not post in lowercase letters as is his usual habit, and the whole paragraph seems to be very formal. "Ilya was undoubtedly one of the most influential thinkers of our generation, a guiding light to our field, and a dear friend." "OpenAI would not be what it is today without him."
Brockman also thanked Ilya and described him as an artist. "While there are those who doubt that AGI is a viable prospect in the near future, we will proceed with caution and confidence that deep learning can take us there. There is still much to be done, and Ilya has played a pivotal role in helping OpenAI lay the groundwork for what it is today. Thank you for all you've done."
Altman also announced that Jakub Pachocki has replaced Ilya as Chief Scientist. "I am pleased to welcome Jakub to the role. He has led many of our most important projects and I am confident that he will lead us quickly and safely through our mission to ensure that AGI benefits everyone."
As previously stated by Altman, Jakub was the research director for OpenAI's Dota gaming project, which was OpenAI's most successful and out-of-the-loop project prior to All in Big Language Modelling. Additionally, Jakub's name appeared on the list of contributors to ChatGPT and GPT-4, where he was both the overall leader and the optimisation team leader.
Following the controversy surrounding Altman's dismissal, it was revealed that Jakub, the company's former head of research, had also announced his resignation. In response to Ilya's departure, Jakub stated that Ilya had introduced him to the field of deep learning research and had been a mentor and valuable partner over the years. He further noted that Ilya's vision for the future of deep learning had laid the foundation for OpenAI and the field of artificial intelligence. "I am extremely grateful for the numerous discussions he has had with us, from high-level discussions about the future of AI to in-depth technical whiteboard sessions."
